The notion of frontier presents a polysemic content, since its meaning varies according to the field in which this content is produced and as a consequence of the most different theoretical-methodological lines that are adopted by the scholars. For historians, boundaries are usually understood in their traditional sense of political boundaries, as well as in the sense of locating the encounter of different cultures.

In the current socioeconomic scenario resulting from globalization, the borders reveal a porous and complex world, marked by relationships that are fed by a set of factors beyond the economic-financial. Population flows multiply; the regions become more mobile and the borders more sliding, making them more multicultural and interconnected, making appear the racial, cultural, religious, economic and historical differences

In the process of their formations, the frontiers denote particular historical, geopolitical, cultural and way of life issues. As phenomena, boundaries represent units charged with meanings referred to by geography and the imaginary of cultures.

In the political field, frontiers appear in national history as vulnerable areas, being a source of constant concern, a place where the question of sovereignty is indispensable. With the emergence of the modern state, the frontier was conceived as a matter of national security, since it came to mean a guarantee of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. From the frontier, the state came to have control over its territory, which is governed by internal laws and at the same time began to control the entry and exit of its territory. Thus, historically, the border was linked to the formation of the State and the Nation and the conquest of new territories, ended up separating peoples. Consequently, the frontier generated conflict, war, enmities.

With the dossier Region and Borders and the journal History: debates and trends intends to contribute to the historiographic debate, showing the different facets that this theme can present.

Opening the dossier, Deborah Paci shows how the end of the Cold War opened up new possibilities for cooperation between the islands of the Baltic region. In the article The Baltic region and its islands: a regional model of cooperation points to the notion of the region as a place for social, political and economic networks and processes that is at the center of the political agenda of the Baltic Sea coastal countries. The author analyzes how the rhetoric of the “Baltic brand”, understood as a particular way of doing things, has become a symbol of the economic and political interests of cultural characteristics common in the Baltic, functioning as a factor of regional construction.

Carla Menegat, in wealthy landowners, powerful caudillos or archaic businessmen: the subjects of the Brazilian Empire in Uruguay and historiography shows how throughout the nineteenth century, Brazilian producers installed in the neighboring country addressed the different authorities of the Empire requesting interventions in favor of their rights violated by Uruguayan authorities. These producers formed, together with the charqueadores and merchants, the top of the social hierarchy in Rio Grande do Sul. Thus, the identification of farmers as wealthy landowners, powerful caudillos or archaic businessmen was recurrent in historiography only recently abandoned. Seeking to understand the trajectory that led researchers to propose new interpretations on the subject, the author proposes in her article a revision of this historiography.

Following up on the dossier, Vitale Joanoni Neto and Júlio Cesar dos Santos in the article Violence practices on the border. A study on diamond mining in Juína / MT (1987-1994) proposes a discussion about power relations and violence in the border areas reoccupied by different social groups, such as traditional miners, prostitutes, pedestrians and merchants in the garimpos, constituted from the discoveries of diamond deposits in the municipality of Juína, northwest of Mato Grosso, between 1987 and 1994. The authors show that power is understood as a legitimate relation of command and obedience, whereas violence is thought as an instrument of domination and imposition on the other in places where the presence of the State is incipient. The many borders of the Cerro do Jarau de Cesar Augusto Barcellos Guazzelli, proposes the study of three different types of border, but which can converge in a single direction.

To compare the characteristics of the slavery of two localities is the objective of Marcelo Santos Matheus, André do Nascimento Corrêa in The slavery in a comparative perspective: Caçapava (RS, Brazil) and Brazoria (Texas) - first half of century XIX. Using as sources a list of fires from 1830 to Caçapava and the 1840 Census for Brazoria shows that although the number of estates and slaves are similar, in the Brazilian locality slave ownership was widespread throughout the social fabric, while in the North American locality only a third of the owners were slaveowners, in addition to that, in the first one prevailed the small and medium slavery, which concentrated a good part of the captives, unlike of second, where the great planteis concentrated the absolute majority of the captives.

Starting the section of free articles, Alejandra Laura Salomón in The rural roads from a historical perspective. History and evolution of the Plan for Agricultural Development (Argentina, 1956) analyzes the role played by roads in the development of productive activities and the improvement of the living conditions of the rural population of Argentina shortly after the fall of Peronism of power. The article analyzes the background of the aforementioned plan and the changes introduced in a context marked by the modernization of agriculture in the pampas and the centrality of the idea of ​​development, examining the political and institutional derivations in the government of the province of Buenos Aires.

Charles Sidarta Machado Domingos, in the article “Brazil in the Cold War espionage game: Cuba-USSR relations seen by Brazilian diplomacy (1962), addresses how the Cuban Revolution significantly altered relations between countries in the American continent. Closing the section, the article The Military Expedition to the North of Paraguay Before the Removal of the Lagoon, of Mário Maestri, exposes about the military column sent in the beginning of 1865 through the interior of the Empire of Brazil to attack the north of Paraguay had mainly propaganda objectives.

We hope that with more this issue, the magazine História: debates and tendencies continue fulfilling its role: to foment the discussion around the most varied historiográficas questions, breaking frontiers and paving the way, instigating new investigations.

Good reading!

Adelar Heinsfeld Programa de Pós-graduação em História Universidade de Passo Fundo, Brasil